'It's unfortunate': Multiple issues led to delays in reporting Saskatoon elections results

Elections Saskatoon experienced a few issues Wednesday night, which translated into significant delays in reporting voting results for the 2024 civic election.

Prior to polls closing at 8 p.m. Wednesday, the city was confident much of the results would be posted on its online portal by roughly 9 p.m., but as City Hall was abuzz with journalists and elections workers, nearly two hours passed by before the first set of unofficial results were available online.

"I underestimated the amount of time it would take to download the data from those machines. So not only did it take time for us to close the polls at 8 p.m., now it's taking that similar amount of time to upload the results into our election results web page, Saskatoon returning officer Shellie Bryant said of the first batch of advance polls.

"So, yeah, it's unfortunate that it's taking so long."

Unofficial results were being printed on long narrow tickets, which were then pinned to a bulletin in the lobby of City Hall as the city worked to have results posted online.

It wasn't shortly before 10 p.m. when nine of the 10 advanced polls were posted to the city's website. The city says there are three main reasons for the delay.

The foremost delay was because of long lines at several polling stations. Per legislation, at the official closing time, every voter in line at the voting location is entitled to vote. Bryant said ballots were still coming in after 9 p.m. To keep the process fair for everyone, the city did not want to have results available while ballots were still being cast, so no results were being released until voting was completed.

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Another delay was working with the "significant volume" of mail-in ballots. Many ballots were received right up to the 8 p.m. Deadline, which required extra time to process, verify and count each ballot.

Another delay was the electronic vote tabulators, which were meant to expedite the process. Bryant said she didn't realize how long it would take each machine to start up once it was taken from its polling location and plugged in at City Hall. Getting the machines back online took longer than anticipated. There were additional unanticipated delays in transferring data to USB devices and then uploaded to the online portal.

By 11:30 p.m. 72 of the city's 82 polls were reported with the final 10 coming in shortly after that.

As for voter turnout, the city saw a return to historical norms after 2020's voter turnout was affected by COVID-19 and a blizzard, which arrived the day before the civic election on Nov. 8 and dumped around 35 centimetres of snow. With voters unable to get out and vote, the election was extended for the first time in the city's history, to Nov. 13.

According to unofficial results released Thursday, 68,701 voters cast their ballots for mayor, councillors and school board trustees, a voter turnout of 35.04 per cent.

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In 2020, 27.4 per cent, or 58,734 ballots were cast, which was significantly lower than the 40.9 per cent, or 80,262 ballots cast in 2016.

“We are very happy with the overall operation of the 2024 Civic Election,” Bryant said in a news release. “No significant issues were reported at polling stations, and it was great to see residents engaged and turning out at the polls to elect their local leadership for the next four-year term.

"The new modernization processes were successful, and they will be further analyzed as the complete election is reviewed.”

Bryant will present a detailed returning officer report to the Governance and Priorities Committee following Elections Saskatoon’s full review of the 2024 Civic Election.